Five Clips from ‘The Last Station’

— by BEN FOWLER —

Could you have a more “all-star” team of actors than director Michael Hoffman has assembled for “The Last Station”? Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren, Paul Giamatti and James McAvoy all star in “The Last Station,” based on the biographical 1990 novel of the same name by Jay Parini.

The film tells the story and explores the final troubled year of Russian philosopher and writer Leo Tolstoy, who is famous for his masterpieces “War and Peace,” “Anna Karenina” and “The Kingdom of God Is Within You.”

Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy and Helen Mirren as Sofya, his wife, are on “powerhouse” acting duties as they dominate and demand your attention in each scene they appear in. James McAvoy plays a comfortable role for him (although no less enjoyable for the audience) as Valentin Bulgakov, a rabbit-caught-in-the-headlights private secretary sent to work for Tolstoy by Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti).